Lost in the Rain
by TheThornBird
Summary: To understand,you have to bear with the pain;to love, you have to endure the heartbreak. Will Soujirou find the answers he's been looking for his whole life? SoujirouOC


**Lost in the Rain**

Chapter 1: Prolouge

Disclaimer: I don't own RK or any of its characters or the song Coming Clean.. (As much as I like to. Oro!)

"_Let's go back, back to the beginning, back to when the earth, the sun, the stars all aligned….."_

Rain.

Rain, it was pretty significant to his 18 years of living.

The pain, the agony, the suffering, the joy and…the liberation. Someone told him it was a dog-eat-dog-world; a world where the strongest survive and dominate and the weak become the sustenance of the strong. And he believed it with the very core of his being, and he had relied on that very phrase to live on. He looked at the burning inferno of rubble that once formed a great battle arena, and belonged to perhaps the only man that he had ever looked up to. Shisio. The man who was a mentor, a savior, and the father that he had always wanted and never had. Did he survive? Or did he join the ranks of the many other fallen warriors? He may never be know. He began to trudge down the worn and beaten path leading towards the lights of Tokyo, leaving his two other comrades to look on silently at his disappearing silhouette.

"_Cause perfect didn't feel so perfect, trying to fit a square into a circle was no life...I defy….."_

It was tiring to keep wearing that mask, that damn façade that he always had on. Everyone thought he was happy and content with all these killings, to be the right hand man of a powerful Lord. He was an accomplished swordsman that most looked up to. He could have anything he wanted. What had he wanted the most? He wanted to show his true expressions to people, he wanted to bare his truest feelings to the ones he loved. But it was hard, and it was near impossible. That accursed smile that was ever present on his face felt fake, unreal. No where and no one. He was doomed to be alone and it would remain like that for the rest of his life.

Before Shisio found him, he was nothing in everyone's eyes. The drunken abusive man that he called Father, the family that hated and despised him. To them, he was nothing but an additional burden, an eyesore…the lowest vermin. The stickiness of the crimson fluid to his damp skin and the excruciating pain that was never too far behind. But at least he felt like he still retained that small piece of his true self and his humanity.

And then it started to pour.

"_Let the rain fall down and wake my dreams, Let it wash away my sanity…_

_Cause I wanna feel the thunder, I wanna scream…Let the rain fall down, I'm coming clean, I'm coming clean...."_

He didn't want to think. He didn't have the luxury of time for him to do that. It was now just pure instinct, the purest, most basic human survival instinct taking over. The moment he saw his step-brother's hand reach for the sword that had been given to him; the boy that was constantly beaten down vanished from the face of this Earth. The single, swift slash of the Katana that let flow a river of blood. It was strangely fascinating how easily bone and flesh can be separated from a body. He wanted to cry, he wanted to scream.

And he found he couldn't.

Amidst the punishing drops of the rain, a small lone figure stood among several badly mutilated carcasses, a morbid remainder of the family. "Are you crying?' the horrendously bandaged man asked, stepping out of the shadows. A single moment of eternity passed within that second, before the boy finally lifted his head and smiled at his new master. He grasped the Katana tighter and walked towards him.

"No." came the simple reply.

"_I'm shedding, shedding every color…. Trying to find a pigment of truth beneath my skin…._."

The truth that he had always been in search for. Between the Battousai Himura Kenshin and Lord Shisio, he was torn. Who was he to believe? Which was the truth, which was the lie? For every truth, a grain of truth resides. Was he supposed to listen to his enemy, or continue to heed his master's advice? His heart to be his guide and his heart already knew which path was the correct one to follow…the one that he has to walk. The multiple lacerations and cuts on his body did nothing to deter him from giving back the Katana that was bestowed upon him those years ago.

And with that parting gesture, he shed the tears he had always kept inside, for the first time.

_'Cause different, doesn't feel so different….And going out is better then always staying in…_

_Feel the wind…."_

It wasn't going to be easy for him to find the truth, but there's something about the Battousai that assured him that everything was going to be alright. His journey was about to begin, and he knew that he was soon going to get the answers that he had been looking for all along. He cast his sapphire blue eyes heavenwards, noticing for the first time, how the blueness of the sky was soothing and purifying, when the darkness of rain give way to the brightness of day.

The smell of the fresh air just after a shower was refreshing.

Time to move on.

"_I'm coming clean  
Let the rain fall  
Let the rain fall  
I'm coming..."_

TBC


End file.
